Lindsey Vonn: Ski star returns after 'hardest recovery of my career'

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Photos:Skiing's speed queen

Lindsey Vonn clinched her eighth World Cup downhill title for a record 20th crystal globe in 2016 despite missing the end of the season to recover from a hairline fracture of her left knee.

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Photos:Skiing's speed queen

Can Vonn become the GOAT? The 32-year-old is just 10 World Cup wins behind the all-time record of 86, held by Sweden's Ingemar Stenmark.

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Photos:Skiing's speed queen

After just nine weeks out, she is ready to return to skiing after a broken arm and severe nerve damage in her right hand, at this weekend's World Cup races in Altenmarkt-Zauchensee, Austria.

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Photos:Skiing's speed queen

She fractured her left knee in February 2016 in a crash during a World Cup super-G race in Soldeu, Andorra, but raced the combined event the next day before calling an end to her season.

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Photos:Skiing's speed queen

Vonn bagged her 37th World Cup downhill win in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, in January 2016 to move ahead of Austrian Annemarie Moser-Proell's record. She added another victory a couple of weeks later in Garmisch, Germany.

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Photos:Skiing's speed queen

Vonn's public profile went galactic when she dated star golfer Tiger Woods for two years from 2013-2015.

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Photos:Skiing's speed queen

Golden girl Vonn won the Olympic downhill at Whistler in 2010 and added bronze in the super-G.

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Photos:Skiing's speed queen

Vonn won the first of three straight World Cup overall titles in 2008 at the age of 23. She added a fourth in 2012, but is still chasing Moser-Proell's record of six overall crystal globes.

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Photos:Skiing's speed queen

Lindsey Kildow -- as she was then before marrying fellow skier Thomas Vonn -- won her first World Cup race with victory in the downhill at Lake Louise, Canada, in 2004.

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She made her Olympic debut in Salt Lake City in 2002 as a 17-year-old, finishing 32nd in slalom and sixth in the combined slalom/downhill event.

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Story highlights

Vonn returns after broken arm, nerve damage

10 wins behind Stenmark's World Cup record

(CNN)She has had more than her share of setbacks, but Lindsey Vonn's fierce determination has driven her back into the World Cup starting gate this week.

She said in a "very personal" and "open" video on her Facebook page this week that it was the "hardest recovery of her career," and revealed the extent of the nerve damage in her right hand.

In the video she has rigorous physio treatment, beginning with trying to wriggle her fingers and stretch her hand before moving onto lifting cups of water, rotating a shampoo bottle, eating ice cream, signing her name and catching a tennis ball off a wall.

Eventually, she takes to her skis and tests her ability to push out of a starting gate.

"Today I am still struggling to do simple things like put on my ski glove and do my hair, but I'm at a point where I am comfortable with my hand in most situations," she wrote on Facebook.

When asked why she came back so quickly, she told NBC: "I was just going crazy not being able to race. I think that the World Cup title is still a possibility in both downhill and super-G."

The left knee

Vonn made a flying start to the 2015-2016 campaign after recovering from a broken ankle sustained in off-season training in New Zealand.

In February she clinched her 76th World Cup victory to close to within 10 of 1970s and '80s legend Stenmark.

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"Stop talking about Ingemar," Vonn told reporters at the time. "I can't start calculating the numbers because it just gets in my head and it makes it a lot harder than it needs to be."

The win in Garmisch was also her 38th World Cup downhill victory, taking her two clear of the previous mark of Austria's Annemarie Moser-Proell.

Vonn suffered a hairline fracture of her left knee in a super-G crash in Soldeu-el Tarter, Andorra, on February 27. However, the following day she raced in the combined event and won the super-G leg.

Vonn then hung up her skis for the season to recover. She had already wrapped up her eighth World Cup downhill title for a record 20th season-ending crystal globe, more than any other skier, male or female. Stenmark won 19 globes from 1975-1984.

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She was well clear in the downhill standings, but overall leader Tina Maze closed the gap to a single point ahead of the World Cup finals in Lenzerheide.

Luckily for the absent Vonn, bad weather forced the race to be canceled and she clinched her sixth downhill crystal globe despite not having raced in the speed discipline since January.

However, she re-injured her right knee twice in late 2013 and was unable to defend her Olympic downhill title at the Sochi Winter Games in February 2014.

The comeback

Vonn returned to action in December 2014 and quickly made up for lost time.

By January 2015 she had overtaken Moser-Proell's record for women of 62 World Cup wins.

She claimed super-G bronze at the world championships in Colorado in February, and earned a seventh World Cup downhill title and a fifth super-G crown to tie Stenmark on 19 crystal globes.

Vonn returned from injury to win her seventh World Cup downhill title in 2015.

The overall wins

Vonn clinched her first World Cup overall title at the age of 23 in 2008 and backed up her all-round dominance by retaining the globe in the following two years.

She added a fourth overall title in 2012, including her first giant slalom victory to become the sixth woman to win a race in all four disciplines. She also bagged a fifth consecutive downhill crown that season.

Injuries have since hampered her quest to beat Moser-Proell's record of six overall titles.

Vonn won the first of three straight World Cup overall titles in 2008.

The Olympics

Vonn competed in slalom in her first Olympics at the age of 17 in Salt Lake City in 2002, finishing 32nd and sixth in the combined event.

Four years later in Turin she added the speed disciplines but could only manage a best of seventh in super-G.

At the Vancouver Games in 2010, Vonn became the first American woman to win a downhill gold and she also clinched a bronze in super-G.

She spent the 2014 Games as a correspondent for NBC News, though she didn't travel to Russia.

Vonn became the first American woman to win Olympic downhill gold with victory in 2010.

The world championships

Despite her success in other major events, the world championships have not been a happy hunting ground.

Vonn won the super-G and downhill titles in Val d'Isere in 2009 but has been without a victory since.

Off the slopes

Her two-year relationship with golfer Tiger Woods from 2013-2015 helped propel her into the limelight, and she embraces mainstream media and social media with gusto -- they even announced their split on Facebook.